Design A Primal Battle!

[Anonymoose]

GOBLIN KING PRIMAL FIGHT

We cannot forget that just because they're on more ambiguous terms with us doesn't mean that there aren't beastmen among us. Moogles, qiqirn, goblins... their gods may not be malevolent deities hellbent on global domination, but every race has reverence for some ideal. In the Moogles, we saw this with Good King Moggle Mog XII, who, despite not being your average primal, was nonetheless called forth from the aether as a manifestation of the paragon of moggly mogness.

I think the Goblins should take the same path: a feel-good fun-based fight where we face the Goblin King. He'd need to be decked out in some pretty regal goblin armor, as we almost never see their true faces.

(Thankfully.)

We can start with Moblin armor and work our way up, but I think the shiny, golden goblin standard, stamped with elegant designs, is a great start. It needs a crown, however. His backpack would be less of a traveler's kit and more of a clockwork vacuum device with a long hose attached. At certain times, he would activate it, setting forth a conal AoE DRAW-IN effect that threw players around the battlefield. Each time he did this, a bomb would be sucked in from just outside the battlefield (part of his stash). This bomb would then be fired back at members of the party, dealing target-centered circular AoE damage.

Another TP move would involve using his hammer to strike a large, luminary bomb-frypan like a gong, stunning everything in range and opening them to other trademark goblin moves such as various types of firework-based attacks. Goblin adds would periodically swarm the field, giving him bombs, firing bottle rockets, and chasing people around.

Much like the Moogle fight was set in a creepy atmosphere and played music reminiscent of the classic Moogle theme set to the structure of This is Halloween from The Nightmare Before Christmas, the Goblin fight would take place in a clockwork cave arena and feature music reminiscent of a song by David Bowie (adjusted of course @.@) in Labyrinth. Because ... come on. Goblin King.

What do we name him?

Goblin naming conventions require a descriptive term and a name using a word related to said descriptive term that ends in "-ix" (because he's male); unrealted example: Soulstealer Skullnix

Yeah!? YEAAAH!?

[JDR388]

Yeah!? YEAAAH!?

You remind me of the babe...

Seriously though, Goblin King would be a lot of fun to design. I will have to look at that some more. I am imaging this goblin pulling in bombs half his size, staggering back as he catches them, and then wailing them out into the party. Sounds pretty neat.

[Aish]

Yeah!? YEAAAH!?

Good King Gobble Gob!

Crownwearer Goblinix!

....Nevermind, I got nothing.

[Duelle]

Take the WoW boss Flame Leviathan from Ulduar for example. Everyone hops in a vehicle and uses the vehicle's weapons to defeat a boss while doing whatever is needed to avoid/reduce damage taken from the boss. (In many ways it's kind of similar to the Leviathan battle in this thread).

I'll add to this by saying I don't see the Leviathan fight be anything other than a vehicle fight unless we suddenly are able to move underwater (and even then he's pretty massive).

Even something like the....Dreamwalker? Or whatever it was in ICC where the Healers had to heal an injured NPC, (the NPC couldn't move and didn't retaliate, so it was basically one big punching bag) that had as much HP as a boss, to full, collecting heal-power powerups to make their heals stronger while waves and waves of adds come to attack your group and the NPC.

Ah yes, the Valithria Dreamwalker fight. Indeed. Instead of fighting a boss you had to heal Valithria until her health bar was full while your tanks and DPS fought off waves of adds that would attack her. Would definitely want to see encounters where the healers really get to show off or designed around them.

The Ramuh fight sounds like a combination of Thorim, Hagara the Stormbinder and Thaddius. Very well done. ^^

[Shurrikhan]

As said before, I have trouble coming up with anything without its backing components. I like for things to build off each other, and for them to seem relatively natural and opportune design decisions once that’s been done. As such, I aim for a certain feel and then progress quest-chains (with multiple encounters along the way, ending in a final boss fight) to reach these combat scenarios.

In this case, I decided to use a wolf pack located in the Black Shroud, with an overall intention of making the world feel more immersing, consequences more applicable, and a certain sort of emotion between conflict and slice of life, as I felt fit the zone. It has some implications towards the wild-kin (in both its fearful term as in 1.0, and a more understanding and satirical one closer to the actual truth) and very slight mentions of Fenrir.

(That said, Fenrir remains a relatively unimportant primal-idea, not actually related to Eorzea; he’s simply something the wolves and the wild-kin leading them sort of noticed as a collective idea. Garuda may have some fun with this later, once you’ve met her. As far as indirect acquaintances go, I think she and he would get along well…)

The encounters and even the final fight are based, obviously enough, on the individual characteristics of the pack. In other words, there are numerous named mobs, each with personalities and distinct combat styles. You will be seeing them often, and even the changes in them should you kill a member of the pack. Continuity is a huge part of this chain of encounters and its overall experience.
That experience can be anywhere from FATE encounters to the quest fights themselves to even seeing the different reactions of young wolves of the pack in the woods as you approach – at first timid, then cocky and aggressive as the wolf pack begins winning its fights, and finally running from you at first sight as they start being killed off.

The wolves’ domain is a den by a healing spring deep in the thick of the woods, the place around it hidden with confusing twists and turns, evidence of stranger elementals and their relationships with the more highly sentient beasts of the forest. This healing spring is important to both the story and combat presentation. As I said, this all begins with FATEs, initially attacks on caravans and hamlets in an almost playful manner, stealing food and supplies. In these, it is very hard to actually kill a wolf. They collapse with a fair portion of their health left, and while they may still remain targetable, and can thereby be killed or even captured (each with different effects on FATEs as relevant to your quest party), others will quickly try to grab the wounded and retreat, rescuing their ally. The time that the rescuers are out of the fight will depend on the damage done to the wolf they are rescuing.

Less wounded wolves will merely be taken out of sight, disappearing literally when too far from the players involved in the FATE, and the rescuers will run back into the fight. Others will be taken back to the healing springs directly—the rescuers will not have time to return. The rescuers may be interrupted when under too much threat, fighting as briefly as possible before returning to save their fellow wolf. They may also intercept ranged damage aimed at the wounded pack member.

The FATEs will have a total strength of the wolf attacking force based on the players present and the progress of involved members in the quest. In that sense, all of these are ‘quest first, FATE second’. Though they are FATE events, and anyone can involve themselves, they are started and based largely on those progressing in the quest only.

That quest-chain can be broken into roughly 5 parts, with about 11 unique encounter types along the way, though many can be repeated until reaching triggers to go into the next. Even without reaching these triggers though, your efforts will have effects. This should feel like a real ongoing war between the pack and those defending against and later hunting them. I’ll give the actual encounters when I get more time.

I Discovery
II Finding out where the wolf domain may be
III Expelling the wolves from the healing springs (and holding the location)
IV Surviving the Alpha’s counterattacks.
V Hunting down the Alpha and defeating the pack as a whole (final boss fight)

That said, the quest-chain doesn’t quite just end with the defeat of the druid leading them. You can choose to go on supporting the pack, take responsibility of the pack as a Free Company, befriend certain members of the pack, or just leave them be, as you like. The pack members, unless killed, will be persistent NPCs on an individual basis.

[Siegtaru]

No offense to the person who posted that first Ramuh primal fight idea. It's a great idea, and I'm sure the poster put a lot of thought and effort into it. Unfortunately, the more I read through the concept, the more it reminded me exactly of the mechanics from a fight in (/wretch) World of Warcraft.

Link

That's the link to some strategy and a walkthrough of the mechanics of the fight I'm relating said description to. Not that the concept the poster had come up with was bad, but I really need as few reminders that I ever played WoW in my Final Fantasy world as I can get. I like the concept though, either way.

[Luna_the_Lalafell]

Nice thread and great ideas! A joy to read. Keep at it!~

Honestly though, I don't think the twin gods should be implemented. It reminds me to much of the Twins Emporer's in Ahn'Qiraj, a level 60 raid in WoW. To this day it's still not soloable, and though with two 90s. It'd be a pain I imagine and just sounds to similar. Forgive if it sounds like I'm flaming, just what the fight reminded me of. :3

[Shurrikhan]

No offense to the person who posted that first Ramuh primal fight idea. It's a great idea, and I'm sure the poster put a lot of thought and effort into it. Unfortunately, the more I read through the concept, the more it reminded me exactly of the mechanics from a fight in (/wretch) World of Warcraft.

Link

That's the link to some strategy and a walkthrough of the mechanics of the fight I'm relating said description to. Not that the concept the poster had come up with was bad, but I really need as few reminders that I ever played WoW in my Final Fantasy world as I can get. I like the concept though, either way.

That said, I can't remember a single WoW raid fight that was as plain or easy as FFXIV's thus far. Well, Garuda's actually on par with a lot of them... Either way though, for a general batting record, WoW's raids have done pretty well in terms of having good fight environments and mechanics for their raid bosses. I don't really mind a bit of a lightning abom Naxx boss on my Ramut; Ramut will or will not be fun because of Ramut. Some WoW vets could joke around when explaining the fight given any similarities, but to 99% of the players those will be irrelevant.

[JDR388]

No offense to the person who posted that first Ramuh primal fight idea. It's a great idea, and I'm sure the poster put a lot of thought and effort into it. Unfortunately, the more I read through the concept, the more it reminded me exactly of the mechanics from a fight in World of Warcraft.

Hagarra is an interesting parallel. I hadn't thought of that. If anything its more like Thaddeus because of the polarity stuff. but neither of those fights really fit with what I have built (and will continue to build) and only really come across in isolated mechanics.

I wont lie, many of my ideas are remixed from other games, not limited to multiplayer rpgs. But that's just the nature of creation. I like to take ideas that work and put them together in new ways. You will see some of this when I do my first 24 man boss.

To address your concern specifically, hagarra is a very different encounter. For one (as with almost all of the tired bosses in that dungeon) it does not have a clear phase change. It just repeatedly swaps between the same two forms (ice and thunder) over and over again. The static circle and lightning rod mechanics I developed are not present in Hagarra, nor is the second image thing on hardmode. That said the idea of overcharging pylons to make the boss attackable does remain, however if you recall in order to properly do this on the fight you are referencing you had to line up and let lightning jump from person to person, not attack them. I originally considered something like this but then decided it was to gimmicky for XIV.

I will have leviathan done either tonight or tomorrow so look forward to that. It is a much more healing intensive fight than Ramuh was. Here is a preview:

[Seraphe]

That sure reminds me of Ocarina of Time Water Temple